Charter Schools' "Thorny" Problem: Few Students Go on to Earn College Degrees

Kevin Carey was quoted in a USA Today article about charter schools:

“Whatever happens in college that tends to prevent students from graduating, those factors seem to overwhelm whatever preparatory virtues even the best charter schools are able to impart in their students,” Carey said.

Carey, of New America, said one of the biggest problems is that many charter schools are located in economically distressed neighborhoods, so they naturally guide students to nearby colleges. But many of these — often they’re two-year public community colleges — have some of the USA's lowest graduation rates. The colleges that many charter school students end up in suffer from “many of the same pathologies as public K-12 institutions,” such as a lack of resources and lousy educational models. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that they have low graduation rates. “Particularly for low-income students, it does matter where you go to college,” Carey said.

Once they arrive, he said, colleges must step up and prepare for more students whose success isn't guaranteed. "As someone who works a lot in higher education, I can tell you: a lot of colleges are bad at that.”